TEHRAN - UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on Saturday won Iranian support for UN efforts to bring peace to Lebanon's border with Israel and held "constructive" talks on Tehran's nuclear programme.

Annan, on a two-day visit to Tehran, met Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and national security chief Ali Larijani, who told him Tehran was prepared to negotiate over its nuclear programme but without preconditions.

Mottaki, whose country is one of the main backers of the Hezbollah militant group that fought Israel for over a month in Lebanon, said Tehran supported UN efforts to bring peace as it deployed thousands more troops in the region.

"Iran has supported the Lebanese consensus on the resolution (UN resolution 1701 that ended the fighting) and the United Nations can consolidate the creation of peace on the border," Mottaki said according to the semi-official Mehr news agency.

However Mottaki also warned that any attempt to change the mission of the expanded United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) "would create tension".

Annan, who is to hold talks with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday, was upbeat after his meeting with Larijani.

"I have just had a very good and constructive discussion with Mr Larijani and you can imagine we discussed the nuclear issue as well the many regional issues of concern to Iran and the UN," he said.

"I found the discussion helpful and it will come in handy as I move ahead in my work and I need all the help I can (get) because your region is keeping me and the UN very, very busy," he told Iranian reporters.

His visit comes as the United States leads a drive for UN sanctions against Tehran after it refused to heed a Security Council deadline on Thursday to halt sensitive uranium enrichment operations.

Larijani said after the talks that "both parties agreed that the best solution is to solve the questions through negotiations," according to Mehr.

He expressed hope that the "capacities of Kofi Annan could help solve the nuclear question", the semi-official news agency said.

"Confidence building is a two-way road. We welcome serious comprehensive negotiation but we will not accept any preconditions," Mottaki added for his part.

"Suspension of uranium enrichment as a precondition for the negotiations is oppressive and illogical," influential former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who heads Iran's Expediency Council, said after talks with Annan.

"The current generation in Iran are those who ousted the shah, resisted the US and stood against eight years of Iraqi aggression. Now they will not surrender to the bullies," he added.

Annan himself expressed reservations over the US drive to impose sanctions on Tehran, warning patience would prove more effective than sanctions in persuading Iran to suspend sensitive uranium enrichment work.

"I do not believe sanctions are the solution to everything. There are times when a little patience is more effective. I think that is a quality we should exercise more often," Annan told the French newspaper Le Monde.

European countries have emphasised that the door remains open to negotiations with Iran, with Larijani set to meet EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana for talks on an incentives package next week.

Solana said during talks in Finland with EU foreign ministers that the European Union was giving Iran a "short" time but no set deadline to move into talks on suspending uranium enrichment activities.

The United States accuses Iran of seeking nuclear weapons, a charge fiercely denied by Tehran, which insists that its nuclear programme is solely aimed at providing civilian energy.

Annan's 10-day tour of the Middle East has been principally aimed at implementing the UN resolution which halted a 34-day conflict that killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, overwhelmingly civilians, and 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

On Friday, he won a pledge from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, an Iranian ally, that Syria would respect an arms embargo against Hezbollah called for by the UN truce resolution that went into force on August 14.

Israel accuses Iran of providing military and financial backing to Hezbollah through Syria but Tehran insists that its support for the group is only moral.

Annan, who has already visited Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and Syria, arrived in Iran from Qatar. He is also due to visit Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt, where he is due to arrive on Thursday.

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